


get your feet on the ground

by myownremedy



Category: Social Network (2010), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - High School, Choose Your Own Ending, Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Abuse, References to Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Translation Available, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:52:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownremedy/pseuds/myownremedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Mark didn't expect anyone to catch him and one time he did,<br/>or,<br/>The one where Mark tries to kill himself and falls in love with Spiderman instead.</p><p>(also available in Chinese)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. five + one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [popsongnation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsongnation/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [get your feet on the ground/让你的脚呆在地面上](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4192152) by [babygirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygirl/pseuds/babygirl)



> Title from the song Safe and Sound by Electric President. Unbeta'd.
> 
> [Babygirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/babygirl/pseuds/babygirl) translated this into Chinese! Find it on the archive here [(x)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4192152) or on another site [(x)](http://www.movietvslash.com/thread-170094-1-1.html).

How do you explain to your therapist that you're alive not because you prayed to God or talked it out with your mom or confided in your friends, but that a masked superhero who is not your boyfriend, thank you very much, keeps appearing to save you?

_("Trust me, Mark. I'll always catch you.")_

You can't. You can't explain it to anyone.

But sometimes lies are as heavy as the sadness that rides on your shoulders and makes you slump down in the shower; sometimes they don't fall off your tongue, sometimes you choke on them and you only have one choice.

This, then, is the truth.

 

1\. The first time Mark falls off a 10 story building, he’s 15 and it’s an accident.

He hadn’t meant to fall, he had meant to jump, but instead he got curious, leaned too close over the edge and looked down at the people and the buildings and the sheer distance had made him shiver, had made him pitch forward and he was falling, careening down towards the pavement -

\- and then an arm was around his waist and he was swinging in an arc, not falling so much as flying, and he’s too surprised to do anything except hang limp in the other person’s grip.

They touch down and Mark realizes that the person who saved him is wearing a tight blue and red bodysuit, complete with a mask and a spider emblazoned in the middle.

“Nice sewing job,” he says, because Mark is too scared to say thank you, to admit what he was about to do.

The guy in the mask makes a face - Mark can only tell because he can see the muscles twitch until the mask.

“Where you trying to kill yourself?” He asks, and that makes Mark scuff his shoe along the concrete and hunch his shoulders.

“I don’t know.” he says. “I…fell, but I meant to jump.”

“I’ll catch you every time,” the man says, voice earnest, and Mark believes him.

“What if you’re not around?” Mark asks, because he’s confused by this total stranger promising to save him from himself.

“I will be,” the man says. “But do me a favor and go to counseling. Get some help.”

“What are you, then?” Mark demands. “If not help, I mean.”

The man is silent and Mark wants him to take off the mask, wants to know who he is and why he did this.

“I guess I’m your guardian,” he says. “But I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Mark. You just have to trust me.”

“I do,” Mark tells him, stupid and ridiculous but it’s true, and he thinks the man might be smiling beneath the mask.

“Good,” he says, and then he’s gone.

 

2\. Mark jumps to prove it, jumps because he wants someone to pull through and deliver on their promise, jumps because if he dies he dies knowing it’s a lie and if he lives, well, he lives.

Spiderman catches him just when Mark is hurtling past the 7th story window and Mark clutches at his shoulders, feels the wind whistling in his ears and wonders why he feels _alive_.

“You jumped again,” Spiderman says, unhappy, when they’re safely on the ground – ok, another rooftop – and Mark is standing under his own power.

“I had to know,” Mark refuses to apologize and doesn’t look at Spiderman, doesn’t want to see that mask with its strange white eyes.

“If I’d come for you again?” Two gloved fingers crook under Mark’s chin and force his head up, making him look at Spiderman’s masked face. “I told you I would. I thought you trusted me.” He sounds…sad, like Mark has hurt his feelings. “I’ll never lie to you, Mark. I promise you.”

“Ok, then take off your mask,” Mark demands, and Spiderman recoils, shaking his head.

“I can’t. You know that.”

“How can I trust you when I don’t even know who you are?”

“I’m someone who cares about you,” Spiderman says levelly. “I’m someone who will always save you, Mark. You know who I am.”

Mark looks away, eyes very hot and skin too tight over his face.

“I wish you’d let me fall,” Mark snaps.

Spiderman doesn’t say anything.

Mark lets himself into the building, walks down the stairs and doesn’t look back.

 

3\. Mark is drunk. It’s junior prom, he’s 17 and he’s miserable, is tired of watching the prom king and queen (Eduardo Saverin and Christy Lee) dance awkwardly in the center of the dance floor.

He doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want to listen to his parents scream and his sisters cry. He wants to code until he passes out on top of the keyboard, wants to feel the energy from his brain feed into the computer until he’s burnt out.

He wanders out of the gym, over to the hill that overlooks the rest of campus, regards the steep slope and thinks about Prozac.

Prozac doesn’t mix very well with alcohol, and Mark knows that, but he keeps sipping the spiked punch until he feels wobbly and sick, keeps sipping until his cup is empty.

“Fuck,” he says to the cold night. Nobody is around. Nobody can hear him. He thinks about saying it louder, about shouting it.

The solo cup falls from his hand and he bends down, groping for it – and then he’s falling, the sky somehow below him, he’s falling and he’s angry that he’s falling when he didn’t mean too, this isn’t following the rules, it was an accident –

And he stops falling abruptly, jerks to a stop because one strong arm is holding him, and then he’s being pulled, somehow, into the top of the massive oak tree that sits midway down the slope.

Spiderman is there, web fastened around one thick bough, one arm around Mark and one hanging onto the web.

“How?” Mark gasps, when he’s sitting against the crook of the tree and Spiderman is regarding him with a cocked head.

“I saw you.”

“You go to my school?”

“I never thought I’d have to do this again,” Spiderman interrupts him, changing the subject. “You haven’t jumped for two years. I thought…”

“Depression doesn’t just go away,” Mark snaps. “But I didn’t jump. I fell.”

“You’re drunk.”

“It’s prom and I don’t have a date.” Mark shakily spreads his hands. “What am I supposed to do?”  
“Having a date isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Spiderman’s voice is pained. “You have to dance with them and –”

“I have _never_ danced with someone,” Mark interrupts him. “The only girl I kissed was Erica Albright and that was when we were six. I’d rather have a date just once then never know what it’s like.” He doesn’t let himself feel embarrassed, reminds himself that Spiderman has saved him three times now, that if he was going to embarrass Mark he probably would have by now.

Spiderman is silent for a minute, and then he says: “Do you trust me?” and Mark is suddenly fifteen again, pimple faced and nervous.

“Yes,” he says, and Spiderman is swinging them from the tree down to solid ground, detaching himself from the webbing and fitting his hands around Mark’s waist.

“What?” Mark says, but his arms link around Spiderman’s neck automatically – he’s seen this often enough that he knows. He knows.

They sway, Mark staring up at the white eyes of the mask, and he’s sure Spiderman – whoever he is – is smiling, is looking back at him.

Overhead, the moon is very bright.

“No one’s going to believe me,” Mark tells him. “When I tell them that my first dance was with Spiderman, no one will believe me.”

“But you’ll know,” Spiderman says. “You’ll always know.”

 

4\. “A full ride to NYU,” Dustin says. “That’s – wow.”

“Yeah,” Mark says, blinking down at the letter clutched in his hand. It reminds him of the way Microsoft basically offered to buy him a better life, the way he told them no without meaning too – he’s still trying to figure out why, why he did that, why he didn’t take the money.

“That means you can move away from home,” Dustin’s voice is hesitant. “That…”

“Yeah,” Mark says again. “I’m free.”

 

He climbs the stairs to the roof of his apartment building and stands on the ledge, watches the light fade and the artificial light of the cities outshine the sunset.

Spiderman lands in a crouch on the corner and rises, and Mark knows that he’s looking at him, that he’s nervous, wondering if he’ll have to save Mark from himself again.

“I got into NYU,” Mark says, stepping away from the ledge. “Full scholarship and everything.”

“And you’re celebrating by regarding the 40 foot drop?”

“No.” Mark scuffs his foot. “I…I wanted to tell you.”

“You don’t have to act like you’re about to kill yourself to get my attention.”  
“Really?” Mark can feel his voice go cold. “Because that’s the only time I see you.”

“I – I wanted to give you space.”

“Right. Do you just save me to get your name in the papers? It’s already there, what with the lizard guy and Electro.”

Spiderman advances, and Mark backs away, towards the door to the building. “Look, forget it, I just thought you’d be happy for me –”

Suddenly he’s in Spiderman’s arms, web around his waist and Mark is trying to process what has happened and simultaneously not pop a boner at the feel of the warm, muscular body pressed against his own.

“Congratulations,” Spiderman whispers, voice husky.

“Thanks,” Mark whispers back. “Is this…am I going to see you around still?”

“I go to NYU, along with fifteen thousand other people” Spiderman says, and Mark can _hear_ the smile this time. “You won’t be getting rid of me so easily.”

“Ah,” Mark says, like an idiot, and he shivers when Spiderman raises a gloved hand and touches his cheek.

“Shouldn’t you, um, be kissing Mary Jane or something?” Mark hedges, and Spiderman laughs.

“I don’t really like girls very much,” he says, tugging on one of Mark’s ringlets. “Besides, Mary Jane’s my girlfriend in the _comics_. This is real life.”

“My mistake,” Mark’s voice is breathless and he’s shaking, but his hands are tugging the mask away from the neck of Spiderman’s suit. “I – trust me,” he says, when Spiderman goes to move away, and so Spiderman stills beneath his hands.

Mark folds the mask up over the bridge of his nose but doesn’t do anything else, keeping his eyes covered.

“Looking out for my virtue?”

“Your secret identity, actually,” Mark mutters.  “I think virtue’s pretty overrated.”

“I’m so glad you –” Spiderman says, and then stops, flushing, and Mark touches his cheek with a shaking hand.

“You don’t even know me,” is what Spiderman says finally, clearly unable to finish his other thought.

“Yes I do,” Mark argues, and presses his lips against Spiderman’s.

 

5\. Mark’s Bio 101 class is stupid but his lab partner is…familiar. He can’t figure out why, but he tries his hardest not to miss the class, even though it’s a GUR and he doesn’t really care and it’s at 8 am.

“You look tired,” says the guy one day, when Mark is slumped over a desk and almost no one else is there.

“I am.” Mark tilts his head. “Do I – do I know you from…somewhere else?”

“I went to your high school, I think.” He smiles, extends a hand. “Eduardo Saverin.”

“You were Prom King,” Mark says without thinking. “I mean…yeah, I remember you.”

Eduardo smiles, big and please, eyes crinkling and Mark wonders why that smile looks so familiar, why Eduardo’s hand in his own is familiar.

 

“We never talked in school, though,” Mark says the next time he sees Eduardo, because he’s still trying to figure it out. “I just…I think I know you from somewhere. Besides school.”

Eduardo shrugs. “I don’t know, man,” and Mark decides to let it go.

 

When he’s bored, he’ll go to the roof of his dorm and sit there, look at the city lights and think about how different is life is now, how taking his Prozac is habit instead of a burden and the urge to jump has fallen asleep, is smothered beneath memories.

Spiderman joins him, when he’s not busy – and Mark knows when he’s busy, because the entire city knows when he’s busy.

There’s so much more work for Spiderman now, what with Dr. Octopus and the Green Goblin and often he has to dash off from the roof top, swinging from building to building with Mark watching him go.

When he’s not busy, Mark and he will talk – or Mark will talk and he will listen, and Mark will think about how he’s known Spiderman for almost four years but he still doesn’t know his name.

Other days, they’ll sit in silence and Mark will look at Spiderman while Spiderman looks out at the city.

“I wish it wasn’t like this,” Spiderman says one day. “I wish – I wish the first time I met you wasn’t like it was.”

“You – you wish you hadn’t saved me?” Mark asks, voice dry, and Spiderman shakes his head.

“I wish I could have met you normally, earlier. I wish that I could let you live your own life without watching you so closely. I wish I wasn’t so scared that you’re going to kill yourself. I wish I could leave you alone and not be sure you’re going to jump as soon as I let you out of my sight.”

“I…” Mark doesn’t know what to say, stares down at his hands dumbly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”  
“It’s not – that came out wrong,” Spiderman says eventually. “I just wish that we had met under different circumstances. I wish we could have a normal relationship.”

“You’re fucking Spiderman,” Mark snaps. “I didn’t _ask_ you to save me. I wasn’t trying to guilt trip you into being my friend. You saved me and then you promised you always would and I was going through a shitty time so I tested that. That’s the only time. The rest of the times were accidental and you just happened to be there.”

“Can you promise me you’ll never try to kill yourself again? Can you stop hanging around rooftops in order to see me? This isn’t fucking healthy, Mark. This isn’t – you should have normal friends. Real friends.”

“Fuck you,” Mark says, cold, furious, teeth clenched. “I’m sorry my depression is _inconvenient_ for you.”

“Mark –”

“No,” Mark snaps. “This isn’t fair to me, ok? You save me, you danced with me, you kissed me – and now? Now you’re just tired of it?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what _did_ you mean?” Mark gets up, crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I could have killed myself a different way, but I didn’t. You…you gave me courage to _try_. And I have been trying, everyday. You don’t know what it’s like for me, what it’s like at home, what it’s like to be so lonely and for the most meaningful relationship of your life to be between you and someone whose name you don’t even know, someone who you’ve seen a grand total of eighteen times. And now you’re saying you didn’t want that? Well fuck you. I didn’t want it either. I don’t want it.”

“Mark.”

“Stay away from me,” Mark snarls.

“Promise me you’ll never jump again, and I will.” Spiderman counters. Mark doesn’t answer, opens the door to the stairs and slams it behind him.

 

+1.

Eduardo asks Mark out when they’re doing punnett squares and it’s almost March, and Mark says yes without really thinking about it.

Sure, Eduardo danced around it at first, befriending Dustin and Chris, getting to know Mark’s suite, and learning not to disturb Mark’s coding. He’s also one of the only people Mark knows who isn’t constantly talking about Spiderman, something Mark finds refreshing.

After Eduardo asks him out Mark takes him aside and tells him that he’s still trying to get over someone but he really likes Eduardo and could they just try, and Eduardo smiles and manages to look relieved and sad at the same time.

Eduardo’s gone a lot, which is weird, but Mark gets used to it. He doesn’t ask questions about where Eduardo goes or why he sometimes has to miss their dates and Eduardo doesn’t ask questions about Mark’s previous ‘relationship’ or his family or the scars on the inside of Mark’s wrists, or the Prozac bottle on Mark’s bedside table. They settle into an easy rhythm, and Mark wonders to himself if he’s the only one who thinks it’s familiar, that it feels almost too natural but also like they’re both trying too hard.

Eduardo will only kiss him, won’t make out with him or feel him up and shies away from Mark’s wandering hands, and Mark tries to be patient. He remembers Eduardo smiling and awkward during prom and thinks that maybe Eduardo is half in the closet still, and that’s ok.

Maybe they’re using each other. Mark doesn’t have the heart to think about this too thoroughly, doesn’t want to admit what he’s using Eduardo for.

One day he stays in Eduardo’s dorm room while Eduardo has class, and helps himself to the chocolates on Eduardo’s desk, and then promptly trips over something red and blue that’s  half under Eduardo’s bed, half wrapped around Mark’s shoes.

He stumbles, falls to his knees and wrestles with the thing, finally freeing himself and feeling triumphant for exactly a second before he realizes what he’s holding, and where he’s seen that before.

It’s Spiderman’s suit, and when Mark gropes under the bed he finds the mask, recognizes it as the same one he rolled up Spiderman’s face when they kissed.

 _I’ll never lie to you, Mark. I promise_.

_I wish we could have a normal relationship, Mark._

_I wish it wasn’t like this_.

Mark leaves the suit on the bed, arranges it so the mask is above the suit and there’s no mistake that he saw it, leaves his phone on the bed next to the mask, and stomps out, slamming the door.

 

Mark’s cool, is calm in a way he hasn’t been for a very long time. His head is…empty. Silent.

He takes the bus downtown, gets off at the right stop and walks three blocks to his apartment building, convinces his parent’s neighbor to let him in and climbs the stairs to the roof.

He waits.

 

He wonders if Eduardo will come before it’s too late.


	2. +2; Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> +2; Alternate ending 1  
> Do not read if you want a happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick character study of Eduardo/Spiderman; the events of the fic from Eduardo's point of view, and a tragic ending.

+2

 

Eduardo is selfish.

He knows this, because when he saw the boy with wild brown curls, hazy grey-blue eyes and painfully thin wrists, he fell in love and his heart beat out the word _want_ in capital letters until Eduardo listened.

Mark was a freshmen and Eduardo was a sophomore, and Eduardo was dating a girl called Amelia Ritter who he didn’t love.

Mark is surly and shy and has no friends; he’s the first thing that grounds Eduardo after the spider bite, and he’s the first thing Eduardo sees when he’s swinging from roof to roof.

Because Mark is falling.

It’s easy to catch him and get them both on another roof, easy to promise to always be there, easy to give himself an excuse to watch Mark from afar, to give see what his heart wants but can’t have.

Mark is scrawny and awkward and fifteen but Eduardo loves him, loves him and hates the fact that the first he gets to talk to Mark is behind a mask and when Mark was trying to die.

He cannot wrap his head around the idea that Mark wants to die, doesn’t ask, doesn’t want to know; he just waits, and catches Mark again when Mark jumps, because Mark was jumping to make sure he would be saved, and while it hurts that he didn’t believe Eduardo – Spiderman – it makes sense.

He says, “I’ll never lie to you, Mark” and that’s a lie in itself; that’s when Eduardo knows how selfish he truly is.

 

Mark seems to get better, makes friends with a red headed kid that Eduardo doesn’t know and Eduardo watches him, breaks up with Amy and starts dating Gwen Stacy, wonders when he’s going to admit what he wants and actually act on it.

He gets accepted to NYU and defeats The Lizard and Electro, watches Gwen Stacy die and befriends MJ. He does well in school. He goes to prom and wonders how he’s Prom King, how he’s waltzing around the floor with Christy Lee in his arms.

He excuses himself as soon as the song is over, makes an excuse about having to babysit and tugs off his suit, folding it neatly in his locker and wandering out of the school to see Mark staring out over the campus.

Mark falls – it was an accident, he says, when they’re in the oak tree and he’s safe, Eduardo has saved him three times and Mark is drunk and maudlin and lonely.

They dance beneath the moon and it’s so different from his dance with Christy; he inhales the smell that means _Mark_ , pine and red bull and the coconut of his shampoo.

Mark says, “When I tell them that my first dance was with Spiderman, no one will believe me.”

Eduardo doesn’t say, _no one will ever believe that Spiderman isn’t brave enough to ask you out, to touch you without the mask._ He doesn’t say, _tell them it was me, not Spiderman_.

“But you’ll know,” Eduardo says instead. “You’ll always know.”

 

The first time Mark kisses him in the first time Eduardo has him in his arms, and his mask is rolled up to the bridge of his nose and Mark tastes like red vines and heaven.

Eduardo doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry so he keeps kissing Mark, pulls Mark tight against him and wonders what the odds are of Mark choosing to also go to NYU, of also getting accepted.

 

He’s in Mark’s Bio 101 class and can’t help himself, volunteers to be Mark’s lab partner and flushes whenever Mark looks at him like he’s trying to put pieces together. Mark recognizes him, or parts of him, and Eduardo is holding his breath, trying to tread the line, trying to be friendly without being familiar.

“Have we met before?” Mark asks and isn’t satisfied with the answer, keeps pestering until he gives up and Eduardo breathes a sigh of relief.

It’s not fair, to have Mark as a friend during the day and have Mark as… _Mark_ , when they’re on the roof and watching the city lights.

He’ll never be able to have Mark fully, he knows that. He’s lied for too long about too many things and while Mark likes Spiderman, he can never get to know Eduardo without putting two and two together.

He voices his frustration and it backfires; Mark snarls like a wounded animal and Eduardo wonders how he can fight Dr. Octopus but not defend himself from Mark’s harsh words.

“Stay away from me,” Mark snarls.

“Promise me you’ll never jump again, and I will.” Eduardo counters. Mark doesn’t answer, opens the door to the stairs and slams it behind him.

 

Eduardo is weak, and he is selfish. He befriends Mark as Eduardo this time, dances around it and finally asks him out over punnett squares and Mark says yes and smiles but confides to him that he’s still brokenhearted and he’s sorry, he’ll try but he hopes Eduardo understands.

It’s like a slap in the face, because he broke Mark’s heart and he’s the one asking Mark to give it to him again, but Mark doesn’t know.

It’s not fair.

He doesn’t let Mark touch him, kisses Mark but doesn’t let them do anything else and Mark goes along with it, and Eduardo thinks that maybe he’s being used.

But it doesn’t work the way Mark wants it, because he’s using the person he wants to forget about; he doesn’t know anything and Eduardo can’t find it in himself to give him the truth.

Maybe he takes the coward’s way out and that’s why he leaves his suit under the bed, where Mark could find it; maybe he thought Mark always sort of knew.

He comes back to find Mark’s phone on the bed, next to the suit and Eduardo breaks out in the cold sweat, uses the phone to call Dustin and demand where Mark is – not in the suite.

Eduardo knows, somehow, where Mark is. He knows and he runs down the stairs two at a time, takes the subway and runs the three blocks.

There are sirens, loud, wailing; dusk falls and it’s punctured by the sound of emergencies and the colors of blood in both it’s stages, the color of blood without oxygen and the color of blood spilling across the pavement.

Eduardo stops running.

There is no point in running, not anymore.

 

 

The headlines don’t say: “Where was Spiderman?”

No one looks at him accusatorily.

Everyone tells them they’re sorry.

Eduardo doesn’t bother to tell them that it was his fault, that he broke his promise.

 

“I’ll catch you every time,” he remembers saying.

“What if you’re not around?” Mark had asked.

“I will be,” Eduardo had promised.

He had been lying.


	3. +3; Happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> +3; Happiness.  
> Don't read if you want a sad ending.  
> There's the same character study/recap in Eduardo's POV but a happy ending!

+3

Eduardo is selfish.

He knows this, because when he saw the boy with wild brown curls, hazy grey-blue eyes and painfully thin wrists, he fell in love and his heart beat out the word _want_ in capital letters until Eduardo listened.

Mark was a freshmen and Eduardo was a sophomore, and Eduardo was dating a girl called Amelia Ritter who he didn’t love.

Mark is surly and shy and has no friends; he’s the first thing that grounds Eduardo after the spider bite, and he’s the first thing Eduardo sees when he’s swinging from roof to roof.

Because Mark is falling.

It’s easy to catch him and get them both on another roof, easy to promise to always be there, easy to give himself an excuse to watch Mark from afar, to give see what his heart wants but can’t have.

Mark is scrawny and awkward and fifteen but Eduardo loves him, loves him and hates the fact that the first he gets to talk to Mark is behind a mask and when Mark was trying to die.

He cannot wrap his head around the idea that Mark wants to die, doesn’t ask, doesn’t want to know; he just waits, and catches Mark again when Mark jumps, because Mark was jumping to make sure he would be saved, and while it hurts that he didn’t believe Eduardo – Spiderman – it makes sense.

He says, “I’ll never lie to you, Mark” and that’s a lie in itself; that’s when Eduardo knows how selfish he truly is.

 

Mark seems to get better, makes friends with a red headed kid that Eduardo doesn’t know and Eduardo watches him, breaks up with Amy and starts dating Gwen Stacy, wonders when he’s going to admit what he wants and actually act on it.

He gets accepted to NYU and defeats The Lizard and Electro, watches Gwen Stacy die and befriends MJ. He does well in school. He goes to prom and wonders how he’s Prom King, how he’s waltzing around the floor with Christy Lee in his arms.

He excuses himself as soon as the song is over, makes an excuse about having to babysit and tugs off his suit, folding it neatly in his locker and wandering out of the school to see Mark staring out over the campus.

Mark falls – it was an accident, he says, when they’re in the oak tree and he’s safe, Eduardo has saved him three times and Mark is drunk and maudlin and lonely.

They dance beneath the moon and it’s so different from his dance with Christy; he inhales the smell that means _Mark_ , pine and red bull and the coconut of his shampoo.

Mark says, “When I tell them that my first dance was with Spiderman, no one will believe me.”

Eduardo doesn’t say, _no one will ever believe that Spiderman isn’t brave enough to ask you out, to touch you without the mask._ He doesn’t say, _tell them it was me, not Spiderman_.

“But you’ll know,” Eduardo says instead. “You’ll always know.”

 

The first time Mark kisses him in the first time Eduardo has him in his arms, and his mask is rolled up to the bridge of his nose and Mark tastes like red vines and heaven.

Eduardo doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry so he keeps kissing Mark, pulls Mark tight against him and wonders what the odds are of Mark choosing to also go to NYU, of also getting accepted.

 

He’s in Mark’s Bio 101 class and can’t help himself, volunteers to be Mark’s lab partner and flushes whenever Mark looks at him like he’s trying to put pieces together. Mark recognizes him, or parts of him, and Eduardo is holding his breath, trying to tread the line, trying to be friendly without being familiar.

“Have we met before?” Mark asks and isn’t satisfied with the answer, keeps pestering until he gives up and Eduardo breathes a sigh of relief.

It’s not fair, to have Mark as a friend during the day and have Mark as… _Mark_ , when they’re on the roof and watching the city lights.

He’ll never be able to have Mark fully, he knows that. He’s lied for too long about too many things and while Mark likes Spiderman, he can never get to know Eduardo without putting two and two together.

He voices his frustration and it backfires; Mark snarls like a wounded animal and Eduardo wonders how he can fight Dr. Octopus but not defend himself from Mark’s harsh words.

“Stay away from me,” Mark snarls.

“Promise me you’ll never jump again, and I will.” Eduardo counters. Mark doesn’t answer, opens the door to the stairs and slams it behind him.

 

Eduardo is weak, and he is selfish. He befriends Mark as Eduardo this time, dances around it and finally asks him out over punnett squares and Mark says yes and smiles but confides to him that he’s still brokenhearted and he’s sorry, he’ll try but he hopes Eduardo understands.

It’s like a slap in the face, because he broke Mark’s heart and he’s the one asking Mark to give it to him again, but Mark doesn’t know.

It’s not fair.

He doesn’t let Mark touch him, kisses Mark but doesn’t let them do anything else and Mark goes along with it, and Eduardo thinks that maybe he’s being used.

But it doesn’t work the way Mark wants it, because he’s using the person he wants to forget about; he doesn’t know anything and Eduardo can’t find it in himself to give him the truth.

Maybe he takes the coward’s way out and that’s why he leaves his suit under the bed, where Mark could find it; maybe he thought Mark always sort of knew.

He comes back to find Mark’s phone on the bed, next to the suit and Eduardo breaks out in the cold sweat, uses the phone to call Dustin and demand where Mark is – not in the suite.

Eduardo knows, somehow, where Mark is. He knows and he runs down the stairs two at a time, takes the subway and runs the three blocks.

*

 

Mark watches Eduardo come into view, can see him running, can see how frantic he looks and looks away. He regards, instead, the forty-foot drop. He wonders if it looks inviting or intimidating. He wonders why he’s here.

This is where it started and this is where he wants it to end.

He hears the door fly open, hears Eduardo step onto the roof and waits, but Eduardo doesn’t say anything.

“You told me,” Mark says, to say something, “that you’d never lie to me.”

“I also told you that I’ll always be around.” Eduardo says, almost whispering. He sounds miserable. “I’ll always catch you, Mark.”

“Even now? When you’re not in your suit?”

“Yes.” Eduardo doesn’t even pause and that makes Mark turn to look at him.

Eduardo is crying silently, tears falling down his cheeks and his eyes are large and dark and sad, like a bloodhound’s.

“Even if it meant revealing who Spiderman is, I would save you and I wouldn’t regret it.” Eduardo takes a step forward, the words pouring out of him. “I would do anything for you, Mark, and I fucked up and I know that. But I was too afraid to tell you who I was, and by the time I realized that maybe you’d like me for me, it was too late.”

“Do you regret saving me?” Mark asks. “The first time?”

“No.” Eduardo says. “I regret not kissing you the first time.”

Mark stares at him.

“Mark,” Eduardo says, like it’s obvious. “I’ve been in love with you the whole time.”

 

They walk down the stairs together, Eduardo first, looking unhappy, and Mark behind him, studying the breadth of his shoulders and trying to reconcile Eduardo with Spiderman.

“I hate you,” Mark announces, hands in his pockets. “I hate you, and I’m – I can’t believe you, Wardo. I love you. I can’t believe you lied to me.”

“I can’t believe you thought about throwing yourself off a building!” Eduardo says, not turning, and Mark punches him.

Eduardo – _knows_ , somehow, because he turns and intercepts Mark’s punch, then pushes him against the side of a building and kisses him.

Mark kisses back, bites his lip and fists his hands in Eduardo’s hair.

The kiss goes from savage and hungry to gentle, to loving, even as Eduardo grips Mark’s hip and then Mark is crying, burying his face in Eduardo’s shoulder and shaking.

“I love you,” Eduardo whispers to him over and over again, the sounds as beautiful as the Hebrew they speak at the Temple.

“Yeah,” Mark whispers back when he has himself under control, embarrassed and red faced, and he threads his fingers through Eduardo’s.

“Yeah?” Eduardo says, grinning, and they’re a mess, both of them, but he bumps his shoulders against Mark’s, and somehow, it’s ok.

They’ll be ok.

* 

Later, when they’re drowsy and in bed, Eduardo traces the scars on the inside of Mark’s wrists and Mark kisses his shoulder, kisses his neck, kisses the side of his mouth, and loves and loves and loves.

 

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on [tumblr!](http://marnz.tumblr.com/) prompts welcome.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [get your feet on the ground/让你的脚呆在地面上](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4192152) by [babygirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygirl/pseuds/babygirl)




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